In the News

Sublime Systems welcomed Mayor Joshua A. Garcia and U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, Friday to the now-vacant 16-acre site the Somerville firm selected to scale up its first-of-a kind process for making low-carbon cement.

The site was once a string of paper mills at the foot of Lyman Street, stretched between the Second Level Power Canal and the Connecticut River. Sublime chose it, in part, because of Holyoke’s modern hydropower which is a successor to those 19th century turbines.

This week, Sublime was named a recipient of Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Tax Credit (48C) Program in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and renewed and expanded under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

“It’s the assets that attracted the industries of the past that’s attracting the new industries of the future. That’s the cleantech industry. Sublime systems is one example of that,” Garcia said. “An industry that is going to make a major impact on the world and our environment.”

Garcia traces his own family roots through the jobs provided in those mills which provided jobs for generations of arrivals to Holyoke.

In Holyoke, the company has promised to employ 70 to 90 people with production expected to begin in 2027 or 2028.

Sublime Manager of Project Development and Community Relations Patrick Beaudry said the jobs will be varied but include opportunities for people who can work in an industrial space, maintaining equipment, keeping areas safe and clean and managing processes. There will be jobs in quality control and materials handling as well, he said.

That doesn’t include construction. He doesn’t yet have an estimate on how many construction jobs will be created. The project is still in the design phase.

Neal said the Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Inflation Reduction Act all came through the House Ways and Means Committee while he was chairman. “You are now seeing the investment that’s coming,” he said, not only from those laws but the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure law.

“All of this will inure to the benefit of the American family for decades to come,” he said.

Making cement creates 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions — more than sectors like aviation, shipping or landfills, according to Sublime. Cement is the key ingredient of concrete, a fundamental building product dating back to Roman times.

Some of the CO2 emissions comes from the fossil fuels used to heat the material. But much of that carbon is released from the limestone itself as it breaks down.

Sublime uses electricity to make cement from stone without releasing the CO2.